Chương 5
“David might have stolen money from work.”
Rachel stopped folding.
“Might have?”
“I don’t know.”
She sat down across from me.
“Emily.”
“I don’t know anything.”
The anger in my voice surprised both of us.
“I don’t know where he goes.”
I looked at my phone.
“I don’t know why he lied.”
I touched my wedding ring.
“I don’t know if anything he told me was real.”
Rachel reached across the table.
“You don’t have to figure it all out today.”
I laughed softly.
A tired, frustrated sound.
“That is what everyone keeps saying.”
“Because it is true.”
“But what if I waited too long?”
Rachel looked at me.
“For what?”
I stared down.
“For seeing him.”
The question stayed between us.
Because I knew the answer.
I had seen him.
I had just spent years explaining away what I saw.
That afternoon, I went back to the apartment.
Not alone.
Rachel insisted on coming.
David was not there.
The place looked exactly the same.
That was the unsettling part.
Nothing dramatic had happened while I was gone.
No broken furniture.
No obvious evidence of a disaster.
His shoes were still by the door.
His jacket was still hanging on the chair.
A half-empty bottle of water sat beside the bed.
A normal home.
A normal life.
A lie built out of normal things.
I opened the closet.
My clothes were still there.
The baby’s room was still unfinished.
A small crib sat against the wall.
David had assembled it himself.
He had spent an entire Saturday reading instructions and complaining about the screws.
I remembered laughing.
I hated that memory.
Not because it was fake.
Because it was real.
Rachel walked into the doorway.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She nodded.
“That makes sense.”
I opened David’s desk drawer.
Nothing.
Pens.
Receipts.
Old batteries.
Then I noticed the bottom of the drawer was slightly uneven.
I ran my fingers along the edge.
A small movement.
The panel lifted.
Underneath was a stack of documents wrapped in a plastic folder.
My heart started beating faster.
Rachel moved beside me.
“What is that?”
I did not answer.
Because I already knew.
Not the details.
Not the truth.
But the feeling.
The feeling of finding something that had been deliberately hidden.
I pulled out the folder.
The first page had David’s name on it.
The second page had a company logo.
The third page had a signature.
And the signature was not his.
It belonged to someone named Lauren Bennett.
The name on the signature made my fingers go cold.
Lauren Bennett.
The same name from the phone call.
For a few seconds, I could not make sense of what I was seeing.
My mind searched for an easier explanation.
Maybe it was unrelated.
Maybe Lauren was someone from the company who had simply signed a routine document.
Maybe the timing was a coincidence.
I had spent so long protecting David from suspicion that my first instinct was still to protect him.
Even when I was holding proof that something was wrong.
Rachel noticed my expression.
“What is it?”
I handed her the paper.
She read the first few lines.
Then she looked up.
“Emily.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
The room felt unfamiliar.
Not because anything had changed.
Because everything had.
The same walls.
The same furniture.
The same framed picture from our wedding sitting on the nightstand.
In the photograph, David was smiling.
His hand rested on my waist.
I remembered that day.
I remembered thinking I had finally found someone who made life feel easier.
Now I wondered how much of that man had ever existed.
Rachel kept reading.
“These are financial documents.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“These are not just financial documents.”
She placed the pages carefully on the bed.
“They’re agreements.”
I picked one up.
The words blurred at first.
Then slowly became clear.
There were account numbers.
Transfer records.
Approval forms.
Dates.
Amounts.
My eyes stopped on one number.
I did not understand it.
Not completely.
But I understood enough.
It was far more than fourteen dollars.
“Why would he hide this here?”
Rachel looked toward the door.
“Because he thought nobody would look.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Not because it was dramatic.
Because it was true.
David did not believe I was stupid.
That would have been easier.
He believed I was predictable.
He believed I would never search.
Never challenge.
Never open the drawer.
Never ask the question he did not want answered.
I picked up another page.
There was a handwritten note attached.
Not from David.
From Lauren.
The handwriting was rushed.
Almost angry.
“Reviewed and rejected due to unauthorized transfer concerns.”
I looked at Rachel.
“She reported him.”
“Looks like it.”
“But why are these here?”
Rachel did not answer immediately.
She was careful with words.
That was another thing I loved about her.
She did not pretend certainty when she did not have it.
“I don’t know.”
I stared at the papers.
There were too many missing pieces.
A second address.
A company investigation.
Hidden documents.
A woman who said she had reported him.
And David, standing in a grocery store, terrified of police arriving.
My phone buzzed.
Both of us looked at it.
David.
I let it ring.
A minute later, a message appeared.
Please stop looking for things that will hurt you.
I stared at the screen.
Rachel saw it.
“What does that mean?”
I did not answer.
Because I knew.
It was not a denial.
It was not confusion.
It was a warning.
My hands started shaking.
Not because he had threatened me.
Because he had confirmed something.
He knew.
He knew I was finding things.
“How does he know?” Rachel asked.
I looked around the apartment.
The answer came slowly.
Because he had always known more than he admitted.
The next morning, I met with Lauren at a coffee shop near downtown.
May you like
I almost canceled twice.
The first time because I was afraid.
